


if i were a rich man

by friedgalaxies



Category: Naruto
Genre: Courting Rituals, Cultural Differences, F/M, Gen, Jewish Character, Judaism, Sand Siblings-centric, Shinobi Politics (Naruto), Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village, jewish sand siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28640337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friedgalaxies/pseuds/friedgalaxies
Summary: Shikamaru wants to fight Gaara, aka the Kazekage of Sunagakure, aka Temari's little sibling. Gaara wants to find Temari a chaperone.Temari just wants to get this all over with.
Relationships: Baki & Suna no Sankyoudai | Sand Siblings, Gaara & Kankurou & Temari, Gaara & Temari (Naruto), Kankurou & Temari (Naruto), Nara Shikamaru/Temari
Kudos: 21





	if i were a rich man

Gaara finds his sister in the library of their home, with books spread open around her and her head in her hands.

“Are you okay?” he asked, because there had been few times in his life when he had seen Temari in such a state, with her hair all frizzy with flyaways and her shoulders slumped. She looked up, frustration so clear in her face Gaara felt momentarily cowed, would have taken an involuntary step backwards if he hadn’t felt hatred even more intense than the temper his lovely older sister kept just barely tamped down levelled at him before. There were dark circles under her eyes, just light enough one could almost have mistaken them for smeared makeup if they hadn’t known she didn’t wear any (she only smeared kohl lines around her eyes during missions in the dunes of Suna, not around the house casually like Gaara nor puppeteer’s facepaint like Kankuro) and they stretched like the dark eye rings of a tanuki as she dragged her hands down her face.

She made an unintelligible noise of frustration that might’ve been words if her mouth wasn’t stretched out in a cartoonish frown. He tried a different question.

“Why do you have so many books out on…” he flipped one closed, careful to keep his finger in place as a marker where she’d had it open, “Konohan courting traditions?”

She groaned again, scrubbing her fists into her squeezed shut eyes. Gaara lifted a naked brow in question, because really, this was starting to get ridiculous and she did know Sunan sign language if she felt she couldn’t communicate verbally. They had long since grown past the grunts and groans stage of nonverbal communication, had grown past it when Gaara was barely ten and Baki had begun tutoring the three of them in sign language in private.

“Because Shikamaru wants to fight you.” she groaned. His lack-of-brow lifted further, kanji-shaped scar wrinkling.

“Shikamaru Nara? The Hokage’s advisor?” he asked, because he was fairly sure on the details but it never hurt to get some clarification, especially since this seemed especially out of the blue. Shikamaru had never been anything but cordial and polite, if a little bored, in their interactions together, but he knew he and Temari had become closer over the past year or so. Much closer, if Shikamaru Nara’s hankering for a spar with the Kazekage was any indication.

“The very one.” Temari confirmed, dragging one of the books closer to her. He could make out a few lines on the intersection of courting traditions between villages; this conversation was really about to get concerning if this was going anywhere near where Gaara thought it was going.

“As in, a spar, or…?” Gaara trailed off. Temari’s dark cheeks flushed, and, oh, he’d been on the right track all along. She muttered intelligibly into her collar, and even though his hearing was feral-sharp he was nothing if not her little brother, which meant she was in for some of the wheedling he’d missed out on during their younger years when all his thoughts were too blood-soaked to have much of a conversation in the first place. “I am sorry, I did not quite make that out. Could you repeat yourself?”

“As in, he wants to ask you permission to court me!” Temari blustered, flushed down to her collar, now. He gave her the best grin he could manage, which was more of an upward twitch of one corner of his mouth than anything, but at least he was trying. She wilted into her shoulders, looking askew at him in her embarrassment.

“But why me? Kankuro is the next oldest, he would make far more sense.” Though he didn’t know all there was about Konoha, his advisors had suggested reading up on some of the common customs of Konoha that had been missed out on in his formal education, scattered as it was. He would be lying if he said the customs regarding romance and marriage hadn’t… drawn his eye, but it was purely from a political standpoint, considering his sister was getting rather close with one of Konoha’s own shinobi, after all. His brother, too, but he couldn’t imagine Kankuro marrying in any capacity for a long time coming, if he ever married at all. Kankuro had been much more divorced from tradition than either Temari or Gaara himself, but Temari was as stringent about tradition as most citizens of Suna, and it would reflect badly on Gaara and his political career if the Kazekage of all people didn’t follow courting customs-- not that he was looking to court or be courted any time soon.

There definitely wasn’t a certain loud-mouthed, black-haired, taijutsu master shinobi that he’d been exchanging letters with, or anything.

And he definitely hadn’t been reading up on Konohan courting traditions to find the intersection between that of Konoha and Suna in that particular matter (there was very little, if any at all) surely not.

But that wasn’t important. What was important was wheedling Temari about her not-so-secret affections for the Nara clan head and, eventually, actually helping her figure out how this was going to work between the two of them.

“You’re head of household, considering you’re the Kazekage, and all,” Temari muttered almost sourly, flipping to another page in one of the texts that had long since been gathering dust in the far reaches of the Kazekage manor library. Gaara frowned and drew a book closer to him, flushing only a little bit when he scanned over the paragraph it was open to on sex and sexuality. He flipped back a few pages in a manner that was an attempt at casual but was surely anything but.

“But he has not even entered _shidduch_ with you yet.” Gaara pointed out in a manner he hoped was helpful.

“I know,” Temari groaned, flopping face first onto the wooden table and surely wrinkling the centuries old pages of the book beneath her. Gaara hesitantly reached out a hand to place a comforting pat on her shoulder. They both tensed at the immediate contact, but Temari quickly buried her old discomfort with touch between the two of them and relaxed beneath the warmth of his palm. Gaara felt a smile inadvertently curl his mouth, glad his sister was looking away and wouldn’t be able to tease him about it. He was supposed to be teasing her right now, after all.

“Do you need help informing him about it?” Gaara asked. Temari’s lips thinned, thinking about her socially awkward brother attempting to have a conversation with her almost as socially awkward sort-of boyfriend without coming off as intimidating or rude. As funny as it would have been, that wasn’t really helping anyone in this situation, least of all her. She shook her head, pushing the book aside and pillowing her arms beneath her cheek.

“What about we have some tea and discuss this further? You look tired.” Gaara stood, already summoning his sand to aid in putting the books away with a quiet rustle. “I will clean up for you.”

Temari shook her head again, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms. “No, I made this mess, I should- oh.”

In the time it had taken her to speak Gaara had already returned the books to their proper places, even though she was fairly sure he hadn’t known all of their titles. Perhaps her little sibling had more of this library memorized than she thought. That was something to press him about later, when she wasn’t about to tear her hair out in frustration. Gaara had always had a secret romantic side, beneath all the sandstone exterior and fumbling with emotions. Gaara’s hands were folded in the small of his back, levelling her with that quiet, companionable silence that would have been a smile on anyone else. He didn’t tend to emote very much, which was fine now that they had gotten much closer and knew each other’s ins and outs, but when they had been younger his penchant for silence had been… intimidating, to say the least. It helped that he also talked more, even if his words were formal at best and stilted at worst.

“That’d be nice, yeah.” she said softly instead. Gaara’s smile eased some of the worry stacked on her heart, and a cup of tea spent in quiet companionship with him would likely ease the rest.

Contrary to popular belief, Gaara was actually alright in the kitchen. He still looked at their collection of knives with barely veiled disdain, and kept his sand armor up when he was working with anything sharp (Temari suspected he had adopted a fear of blood now that he was no longer in the constant miasma of hatred Shukaku had inflicted upon him) but he made a pot of tea like no one else she knew. He could often be found in the darkest hours of desert night, huddled over a cup of tea in the mug he always took, leafing through documents at their kitchen table as if he didn’t have a perfectly working desk upstairs in his study. Temari thought he might just like the quiet, easy atmosphere of their shared kitchen.

Temari shuffled into the sitting room, surprised to already see Kankuro there, sitting bare-faced and hoodless on the couch as he bent over what looked like a needlework, an oil lamp puttering away on the side table at his elbow. She raised a brow, sitting down at his other side with little preamble and tucking her feet underneath her on the cushions, manners be damned. He grunted when she leaned into his space, chin on his shoulder to peer at the needlework in his lap. It looked like a seal of some kind, but it wasn’t far enough along for her to be sure.

“What’re you working on?” she asked. Kankuro raised it to the moonlight coming through the carved apertures of the windows, dark purple threads on shimmering black barely visible.

“A new trap for Gray Fox.” Upon further inspection, the remainder of the fabric hanging from the embroidery hoop was in the approximate shape of a small shirt, about the size for Kankuro’s second-smallest puppet.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just paint it on?” Gray Fox, like the rest of Kankuro’s puppets, was wooden, she knew that much. It would’ve been far easier to just paint or carve the seal directly into the puppet’s abdomen.

“It’s s’posed to come off of him and capture the target in a net.” Kankuro explained, bent over his needlework again. Temari hummed approvingly, watching the tips of her little brother’s ears redden, now that they were no longer hidden beneath his black puppeteer’s hood, the end of his sentence trailing off into an embarrassed murmur. “And I just… wanted to make him a new set of clothes.”

Temari snorted, bumping her shoulder against his. He grunted back and continued stitching, the only sounds in the house the quiet ministrations of Gaara in the kitchen across the way and the soft drag of thread against fabric.

Gaara eventually entered the sitting room with a tea service balanced in his hands, footsteps almost silent on sandstone. He set it down on the low coffee table, setting out individual cups and saucers for each of them and pouring their tea with practiced, methodical movements. It was only after he had settled into his own high-backed armchair, across from the couch and turned slightly to face the window, and taken a deep inhale of the pale steam curling off of the tea in his hands that he spoke.

“So,” he started, and Temari could already feel a flush climbing high to the tips of her ears again. She huddled over the warmth of her teacup for support. Kankuro had set his embroidery aside in his lap and levelled a raised brow at her over his own teacup, lips pale against dark porcelain where his puppeteer’s greasepaint had cut lines of shadow and light into his face from the harsh Sunan sun. It was a little hard to take him seriously with the unfortunate cookie cutter pattern of tan lines on his permanently pouting face, though. “You need a _shadchan_.”

“Excuse me--?” Kankuro spluttered, narrowly avoiding dribbling hot tea down his own front and onto the embroidery project in his lap. “Temari needs a what?”

Gaara tilted his head like an inquisitive fox kit, all red hair and dark rings around his eyes. She might have associated him with a juvenile maned fox, if the connections between her youngest sibling and tanuki weren’t already so strong. “A _shadchan_. You know, someone to properly organize the _shidduch_ \--”

“No, no, I know what it is. I just wasn’t aware sister dearest was ready to take that step with-- was it Nara? Shikamaru Nara?” Kankuro’s questions were innocent but the expression on his face was anything but. Temari growled, pushing his face away so that that wide, beseeching grin wasn’t focused on her anymore.

“Brat. You know full well there isn’t anyone else.” she snapped. Kankuro shrugged.

“I’m just lookin’ out for you, _shvester_. He looked awful close to the Akimichi heir last time we were in Konoha, is all I’m sayin’.”

Temari frowned. While Shikamaru and Chouji’s relationship wasn’t exactly a secret, it wasn’t exactly anything serious, either. She’d questioned Shikamaru on it, once, and while her views on romance were a little more-- okay, a lot more-- conservative than the vast majority of Konoha’s citizens were, as was such the cultural differences between their home villages, she hadn’t found anything wrong with it. It wasn’t exactly like Shikamaru was trying to keep it hidden from her, nor from anyone else, and anyone who questioned the nature of their relationship with ill intent was welcome to say hello to the broad end of her fan (if Chouji’s many relatives and the many, many overprotective friends they shared didn’t get to them first, that was.)

“He makes Shikamaru happy.” she decided on, when the silence between responses was getting a little too heavy even for Gaara’s liking and he started to shuffle his feet uncomfortably on the stiff rug. “That’s all there is to it.”

She could’ve sworn she heard a muttered _“is it really”_ from Kankuro’s direction but decided not to press him on it. Gaara had decided to do something nice for her and hold this discussion in the first place, and she wasn’t exactly going to make him uncomfortable when his skills with social customs were so stilted already.

“We could ask Baki,” Temari posited instead, a hopeful lilt to her voice. There truly weren’t many choices for them, considering as the Kazekage’s family there were few that were their seniors, both political and otherwise. And they hadn’t any parents left, not that Temari would have allowed Rasa to be involved in her courtship were the man still alive in the first place. Yashamaru could have been an option, had he not already been… well. Lady Chiyo could have been an option as well, but she had passed almost as long ago as their parents and uncle had; which left either the remaining half of the Honored Siblings in Ebizou, Baki, or Gaara himself.

Temari cringed inwardly at the idea of having to have dates with Shikamaru set up under Gaara’s instruction. She had no doubt he would do a wonderful job, as well-researched as he was and given his tendency to throw his all into a project until he saw a result he was satisfied with, but the idea of involving her siblings directly into her romantic endeavors more than she had to, well… Temari was still an oldest sister at heart, was all. It was about the principle of the thing.

“Baki would seem the best proper option,” Gaara mused, taking another sip of tea. Temari tasted her own, pleasantly surprised to find it was the sweet peach blend she favored (and knew for a fact Gaara found a touch too sweet.) Her heart bloomed with an overabundance of love for her siblings for a moment. “Would he be open to the position, is my only reservation.”

“Are you kiddin’? There’s not much Baki would say no to if y’asked it of him.” Kankuro said, and Temari found it hard to disagree. It was no secret the normally stoic and austere man held a soft spot for the three of them, had ever since he had seen the first signs of Rasa’s abuse when they were children. Temari thought she would’ve turned out much worse if Baki hadn’t personally taken her under his wings and taught her the finer points of Wind Style. That, and--

“And you’re the Kazekage, so he can’t exactly say no.” Kankuro added. Yeah, that too.

Gaara’s ears reddened, and he looked down into the surface of his tea to avoid eye contact. Temari and Kankuro shared a brief, private grin with one another.

“We will ask him tomorrow.” Gaara said.

Tomorrow brought a scorching hot sun, blistering winds, the threat of a sandstorm on the blue horizon, and a descending nervousness that was entirely unlike Temari.

She woke with a start, freshly delivered from a stress dream where Shikamaru refused to provide a _mohar_ in exchange for Temari, or to pay gifts to either of her siblings. The ridiculousness of the situation is what ultimately clued her into it being a dream before she awoke, because she knew Shikamaru was just as invested in their budding relationship as she was and it was only political red tape and cultural differences that stopped them from going any further.

But then it brought about a new wave of fresh, more realistic anxieties. She knew Shikamaru’s father to be dead, and even though his mother still lived, their relationship was tenuous at best and Shikamaru had tried to relocate to a different residence as soon as possible, until his father’s death had stopped that plan in its tracks. Yoshino Nara was not a kind or benevolent woman. From what Temari could gather, Shikamaru had spent more of his nights during childhood at the Akimichi or Yamanaka Head houses than he had at his own. It made her blood boil to think about.

But really, who was going to pay Shikamaru’s _mohar_? Sure, he could provide the gifts to the three siblings himself with his own funds, but he certainly didn’t make enough to build a _mohar_ befitting of the Kazekage’s sister, not even with his combined jounin salary and the payment he got as the Hokage’s chief aide. It would reflect badly on the both of them if what he were to provide were insufficient, much less if he were unable to provide anything at all. Just the thought of the political backlash that would entrench Gaara was almost enough to make Temari break out in hives. The people of Suna would not take kindly to what they thought to be an insult to their Kazekage’s family.

As she dressed to meet her siblings and mentor in Gaara’s office at the Kazekage building, she continued to think about the conflict between their village courting customs. This was something she’d been thinking about for a long time, of course, but now that they were officially going to ask Baki to be her _shadchan_ , it was suddenly renewed. It all was going to happen now for real instead of the private daydreams Temari had secretly delighted in ever since she was a child. Every little Sunan girl dreamed of their eventual wedding, after all, no matter how conservative or rough they had been raised. Temari’s daydreams had always been a nice escape from the conflicts in her own home, the fear of her littlest sibling and the constant tightrope walking she had to engage in not only in the walls of Suna but in her own home as well, no matter how brief. She suspected Kankuro had thrown himself so wholly into puppetry for the same reason.

What would their wedding end up being like? Would they have a ceremony that was a mix of Konohan and Sunan traditions, or would they have one of each? What would the reception be like? How would they dress, and what attire would their wedding party wear? Who was going to be in their wedding party, in general? Temari’s first thought was Gaara and Kankuro, of course, but on the off chance that Gaara were to officiate then she would have to find someone else. They could ask Ebizou to officiate, as a sign of respect to the remaining Honored Sibling, or perhaps Baki? But they were already asking him to take position as her _shadchan_ , it would be rude to pile even more work onto the man. But then there was the issue of who would take Gaara’s place in her wedding party if he were to officiate, and would it be odd to ask Gaara’s assistant? She was really the only other close ally they had, considering their father’s reign and how Gaara’s early childhood had reflected on the family as a whole, they really didn’t have anyone else--

In her musings, Temari’s feet had instinctually carried her to the doorstep of her sibling’s office. She knew there to be ANBU stationed in the shadows directly along the hallway leading to it, but they had been instructed specifically to not stop a member of the Kazekage’s family from entering, as well as a select few others.

All of which were gathered on the other side of that door-- with the addition of Temari, of course.

Temari steeled her nerves for a final time-- really, this anxiety was unbefitting of her-- and opened the door. Sitting behind the great wooden desk, of course, was Gaara, in his official Kazekage robes and veiled hat. He looked up, past Baki and Kankuro’s heads where they sat in front of the desk, and motioned her in. Shijima, Gaara’s assistant, waved from her smaller desk directly to the left of Gaara’s, long fingers poised on her typewriter to take notes as necessary. Two of Gaara’s ANBU-- Temari knew it to be Hare and Roadrunner on rotation right now-- clung to the shadows in the corners of the room, near the ceiling. Gaara forbade any ANBU from being stationed directly behind him, but one was stationed directly across from him, above the left corner of the wide window, and the other in their squadmate’s direct diagonal across the room.

“Temari, please. Take a seat.” Gaara nodded in the direction of the third remaining seat, between Kankuro and Baki and directly in front of her youngest sibling. She really was going to be the center of attention here, wasn’t she.

Temari did as instructed, removing the scroll holding her fan and setting it at her feet. She needn’t be hostile in her own sibling’s office, of course, but they never knew when a threat was going to sneak up. It had been a handful of years since Gaara’s ascension, but he still had opposers, hidden as though they tried to be. There was a reason Kankuro and Temari always tried to have at least one of them stationed directly in front of the large picture window in Gaara’s office, and the same reason they had tried to fight so hard with him against having it put in when he was having the office remodeled at the start of his term. But Gaara had faith in the good people of Suna, and argued (in his own quiet way) that showing lowered defenses was the best way to have the citizens trust him, after Rasa’s guarded, malignant term.

He had always been so soft at his core, her littlest sibling. There was a reason Temari personally fielded every staff member of the building. Shijima wasn’t just a pretty object for show, after all.

Gaara folded his hands on his desk before him, the official cue he had accidentally picked up from the council of elders as a signal to start. It was awfully cute, all things considered. “I have brought the three of you here today to discuss the matter of Fan Master Temari no Sabaku’s _shidduch_. As such, I would formally ask--”

“Kazekage-sama,” Baki said, visible half of his mouth curling into a soft-edged smile, “there’s no need for such formalities. Please, let us speak as equals. What do you require of me?”

Gaara’s face softened minutely, from the intentional hard shelled furrow he wore during formal meetings like a mask, and into his normal, placid expression. “Of course. Baki, as a member of Suna’s counsel, but moreover as our former sensei and an ally of high esteem, we would like to ask that you take the role as Temari’s _shadchan_.”

Baki blinked in what Temari could only assume was surprise, but he recovered quickly. “Of course, I will accept. Though I must ask, was I your last option?”

“C’mon, Baki, you know there’s like, ten people maximum that actually like us, and half of that that we trust enough to do this.” Kankuro spoke up, arms crossed over his chest. Baki rubbed his chin in thought.

“And you could not do it yourself, Kazekage-sama?” From the shit-eating grin Temari could just barely see begin to curl the edge of his mouth, which looked all the more catlike with the red whiskers of greasepaint along his right cheek, she knew she was in for even more teasing than before. And from her former sensei, of all people.

“I, ah,” Gaara began, beginning to pink through the grains of his sand armor, “I would prefer as to not be so closely involved in my sister’s love life, no, as much as I love her.”

Shijima stifled a giggle into her hand. Temari shot a glare her way, though it was undoubtedly dampened by the flush high on her own dark cheeks. Baki nodded, slowly, as if he had just been bestowed information from some great sage instead of taking the time to embarrass his former students, as grown and powerful as they now were.

“I’ll draft a formal request to Shikamaru Nara.” Temari would’ve squawked in surprise if she hadn’t already known about Baki keeping a keen eye on the two of them during their visits to Konoha. He was as much a part of Gaara’s council as she and Kankuro were, after all.

“Would you like me to send it for you, Baki-san?” Shijima asked, already leafing through the many neatly organized piles of documents on her desk for a tube to seal the scroll in.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Shijima-san, that would be perfect.”

Temari resisted the urge to groan and sink deeper into her chair at the thought of Baki terrorizing Shikamaru through formal letters. She would have to send him a warning and hope it got there before Baki’s personal hawk.

Baki cornered her three days later in the library of the Kazekage manor, where she was, yet again, pouring over texts on the courting customs of Konoha and Suna and hoping if she glared at them hard enough then the answers would just spell out on the wood of the table in front of her. Baki announced his presence with the quiet noise of a scroll being set down in front of her, followed by the welcome scent of a warm dinner being unboxed and the weight of a fork being set into her own hand.

Baki settled into the chair next to her with a grin, pulling the books open before her across the table out of the way and pushing a clearly homemade dinner in front of her. Her mouth started watering of its own accord, and she looked up at him in confusion, despite the fact that she was more than willing to eat whatever it was he had made. Many childhood afternoons had been spent at Baki’s humble abode after one-on-one sessions in Wind Style, stuffing her face with his homemade meals until her cheeks puffed out like a hamster and he had to reprimand her to slow down lest she choke, even though his own deep-voiced chuckles.

“I figured you were spending more time down here than you need to. Enough to miss dinner, at least.” Baki unboxed his own dinner, setting the scroll he’d brought with him just out of her reach. A promise that they’d go over it if she fed herself first, then. She dug in eagerly, not cowed enough to skip out on the chance to eat her mentor’s cooking again.

“Gaara tell the ANBU to lay off of you?” she asked, once she’d taken a moment to come up for air. Baki snorted, in a manner that registered distinctly as similar to her own, and she had to wonder if she’d picked it up from him as a child. Her mother hadn’t been around long, Rasa distant at best and Yashamaru quick to follow his sister’s example, so her mannerisms had to come from somewhere.

“What kind of decrepit old man do you take me for? Even if he hadn’t, I’m still perfectly capable. I’m not so old to be out of my prime, brat.”

Temari laughed. He had her there.

She made what she could only hope was a seemingly innocent gesture in the direction of the scroll, instead of the barely constrained attempt at snatching it off the table and reading it for herself she really wanted to make. But Baki’s reflexes had always been that nanosecond faster than her own, so it really wouldn’t have gotten here anything except a lecture and an even longer wait to read the scroll.

“I’ve already read it, by the way.” Baki added as an aside, fixing her with a coy look out of the corner of his eye. Temari hissed air through her teeth. “He’s rather well spoken, considering how lazy he seems. I won’t question your decision here, but I will say I was surprised.”

Baki turned, setting his weathered hand atop hers, and Temari cringed to think about how thin his skin seemed, the minute wrinkles beginning to form like crags in his dark skin over the backs of his hands. She flipped her hand over, giving his a reassuring squeeze. The corner of his visible eye crinkled in a smile. “I just want you to be sure you’re making the right decision here, Temari.”

“I know, Baki. I think I am.”

“You ‘think’? That isn’t the Temari I know. Where did this timid girl come from, all nervous and wet behind the ears?” Baki teased, and Temari couldn’t help but grin back.

“I’m sure I am. He’s unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.” She could’ve sworn she heard him mutter “and I said that about my first husband” under his breath, but whatever the comment was it was drowned out by the rush of blood in her ears as he spoke next.

“You’ve been patient enough, you can open it.”

“Oh, thank fuck--” Temari cried, snatching the scroll off the table and into her hands. It was clearly on paper from Shikamaru’s office, with the Nara clan symbol stamped onto the outside and Shikamaru’s personal wax seal stamped into a circle of dark green wax. She unrolled it before her, having just enough forethought to move her dinner out of the way lest she stain the correspondence. In Shikamaru’s spidery, scrawling hand, it read;

_“To Whom It May Concern,_

_I, Shikamaru Nara, head of the Konoha Nara clan and Chief Aide of the Hokage, would be more than delighted to accept Fan Master Temari no Sabaku’s offer of courtship. Please respond with details as to when Temari will be available to begin the courtship, and I will meet her at the gates of Suna in one days time before._

_Signed,_

_Shikamaru Nara”_

“Oh, dear,” Temari breathed, rolling the scroll out till it lay flat in front of her and using the corner of a heavy book to pin down the top edge. It valiantly still attempted to curl back into shape along the sides, making Shikamaru’s writing curve up like it was preparing to take flight, kind of like those ink birds Temari had seen one of Team 7’s former members-- Sai, she thought-- made.

“Your _yedid_ really doesn’t understand how the shidduch works, does he. Poor boy.” Baki tutted, chin resting in his palm as he peered at the letter over Temari’s shoulder. She flushed, whipping around to face him.

“He is not my _yedid!_ ” she all but hissed, though the effect was subdued by her furious blush and the fact that her shoulders were steadily climbing up to meet her ears. Baki grinned, all the more leonine.

“Would you prefer I call him your _bat-zug_? Even though you have not officially entered _shidduch_ yet?”

“I would prefer you called him by his name, Baki. You know, the traditional _shadchan_ does not tease the people they’re performing _shidduchim_ for.” she bit out.

“And, traditionally, those undergoing shidduchim do not get to preemptively choose their marriage partner. There is very little about this situation that is traditional, Temari.” Baki frowned, face growing serious. “Why are you clinging so intensely to traditions in the first place? You’re the Kazekage’s sister; anything you ask of Gaara, he will decree for you. People can’t exactly oppose you on this.”

Temari fiddled her thumbs beneath the table, feeling all of twelve again and like Baki had taken her aside for the preemptive lecture he had given her before they left for the chuunin exams in Konoha, all those years ago.

(“You do not have to do this, technically. If your father declares the three of you fit for chuunin, the citizens cannot exactly argue against him. Why not just petition him to change your rank to chuunin?”

“I don’t want to spend more time with him than I have to. Besides, won’t it be good to get away from Suna for a while, show people what we’re really made of?”)

“It’s about the principle of the thing. If the Kazekage’s sister of all people doesn’t follow tradition, then what is it worth? What keeps the citizens from breaking from it the same way I have? And Shikamaru already wants to do this the traditional way, he’s about as old-fashioned as I am, maybe moreso.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes, rubbing at the dark circles that had steadily gathered there over the past few sleepless nights she spent tossing and turning in between stress dreams about anything and everything that could go wrong. “I think he might’ve made a promise to his late father, or something. I don’t know. I just want to do it this way.”

Baki smiled, and it had none of the teasing edge from before. “I support you. You better tell that boy about what exactly he’s getting into, then. I’ll keep doing research. You go sleep.”

“Thank you, Baki. It means a lot.”

“And you three little devils mean a lot to me. Now go.”

The next morning found Temari slightly more rested than the night before, now that she had gotten the issue of her shadchan out of the way and she had another person on her side, in her corner. She stretched, did her hair into the usual four bantu knots and slathered in sunscreen, as she did every morning before dressing. She was just finishing tying the scroll that housed her fan at the small of her back when there came a knock at her door, light and concise.

She frowned. It couldn’t be Kankuro, because he never knocked and just yelled that he was coming in before opening the door. It couldn’t be Gaara either, because he always knocked, but his steps were silent, and his knocks almost the same. It couldn’t be Baki, because he had stayed the night and was likely still asleep in one of the many guest rooms, one of which he had practically taken as a second home from the many nights he had spent at the Kazekage manor when Gaara was first ascended. The only person that it could have been, without the ANBU stopping them to inform her of their presence and request for Temari’s audience, was--

“Shijima.” Temari blinked up at the taller woman, in her loose, dark purple pants that nearly brushed the ground and professional looking blouse in a similar shade, pinned all the way up to her neck.

Shijima smiled, adjusting the frameless glasses she wore low on her nose, a bundle of scrolls in her lanky arms. “Funny seeing you here. Are you joining us for breakfast?”

“Actually,” Shijima started, and Temari felt something in the back of her head groan in defeat, “I came to collect you. We’re going to be putting your dowry together today, and the Kazekage wanted me to take you to breakfast, first. Anything in particular you’re craving?”

Shijima really was a skilled woman. She came from an experiment of Orochimaru’s that had started long before Temari had even been born. The man had somewhat successfully planted an artificial Sharingan into Shijima’s eyes, but the Sharingan was incomplete and, in his childish ire, Oorchimaru had injected a rare snake venom into her face. The Houki clan had come to their Kazekage for help, of which Gaara had managed to enlist Sakura Haruno, one of Konoha’s skilled healers who had removed a similar venom from Kankuro when they were children.

Shijima carried scars along her face, but the worst damage had been to her eyes, which she wore strong corrective lenses for. Her irises themselves were an oil-slick rainbow of fragmented spades, part of her Sharingan being activated whenever she was awake and focusing, and giving her a slight migraine at all times from it. Had she not suffered the injury, Temari believed she would’ve been a successful and powerful shinobi, likely achieving tokubetsu jounin rank.

As such, she was a dedicated paper-nin and the Kazekage’s assistant. She had been more than vocal about her excitement over Gaara’s reform and the subsequent fall of Rasa’s tyranny, and supported the three siblings vehemently. Either way, she was a fine shinobi and had more than a few tricks up her sleeve. These days, she excelled in fuinjutsu and kenjustu to make up where her genjutsu had fallen behind. She was only a few years Temari’s own senior, but treated all three of the Sand Siblings as if they were her equal in skill-- of course, excepting in deference to the Kazekage during her working hours. She was funny and smart and kept Gaara on his toes.

Either way, Shijima was a clever, conniving woman, and Temari feared the day she turned on them all. But until then she was going to use her skills to put Temari through the worst tortures known to man, including small talk over breakfast and having to scrounge around their family home with her siblings to arrange a dowry.

A thought occurred to Temari then. “Shijima, would it be uncouth to ask you to be in my wedding party?”

Shijima blanched, and Temari momentarily delighted in turning the tables on the other woman for once, in all the time that they’d known each other.

“Dunno why we gotta go sorting through all the old man’s shit.” Kankuro grumbled from where he stood knee-deep in old boxes and piles of scrolls, hands braced on his hips in a way that Temari couldn’t help but be reminded of their uncle. Kankuro sneezed. “And it’s dusty as hell.”

“We live in the desert, Kankuro,” Gaara said from the floor where he sedately sorted through boxes, passing a few of the smaller ones up to Temari. It was charming, in a way, seeing her little sibling removed of his work-hour finery and crouched on the floor of their old sandstone manor’s basement. He had never learned to not sit with both legs tucked and splayed to the outside, had he?

“Dust is part of our routine.”

Shijima snickered from the doorway. She had eventually gotten over her shock and managed to fluster Temari into a red-faced stammer over breakfast that morning. Temari could still taste the sticky date jam on the backs of her teeth.

The basement, cool and dry and made of the twisting natural tunnels within the sandstone, was largely Kankuro’s demain. His main room was in one of the smaller compartments, as he didn’t have many personal belongings that he liked to display and didn’t feel much need to entertain guests in his personal quarters. That’s what they had all that space upstairs for, he had taken to saying.

One of the larger rooms had been cleared out entirely during their teenage years as a present for Kankuro to become his puppet workshop. At first, their father had snubbed Kankuro’s interest in chakra puppetry, even though Kankuro had shown more of an interest in the toy puppets created by the Red Sands Playhouse for the children of the fourth Kazekage than Temari or Gaara ever would combined.

(They did not talk about how Gaara no longer played as a child should after Yashamaru’s death, instead kept in his quarters, unfeeling, unsleeping, until it was time for him to be used as the weapon Rasa thought he was.)

But eventually, and Temari knew this to be because puppetry was a skilled ninja art that would only bring more power to Rasa once Kankuro learned to harness it properly and Rasa harnessed Kankuro, he was afforded one of the larger rooms in the basement as his personal workshop. It was a bit grotesque to the outside viewer, the half-finished carcasses of puppets made of wood and cactus skeletons and fabric hung from hooks or strewn about the sandstone floors and shelves in various states of completion. His finished puppets hung up on display on the walls when not stored in his scrolls for later use in combat, and some of the puppets were so small they were only for play, or perhaps even a gift to a loved one.

Temari had a little weasel puppet that ambulated across whatever surface it was sat on when one twisted it’s wooden tail. She adored it, deeply, cherished like few other things she owned.

Kankuro grumbled and sat down amongst the boxes himself, pulling a stack closer to him. A puff of dust went up and he sneezed again, rubbing at his nose. The purple paint along his upper lip came away smeared. Temari snickered. Gaara made a soft clicking-huffing noise his elder two siblings had come to recognize as a laugh.

Shijima began picking her way carefully amongst the disorganized piles. It seemed as though their father’s assistants had had as little regard for the possessions he stored down here as the man himself, for how haphazardly they lay stacked and leaning against each other. “I suppose I should help with these scrolls. That’s what I’m here for, after all.”

“You need not help us, Shijima. I sent you home early for the day.” Gaara looked up from the little box he clutched in both hands with a slight wrinkle to his brow, bald brow tugging on the kanji-shaped scar at his left temple.

Shijima waved away the concern, and the puff of dust that went up as she gathered a pile of scrolls into her arms. “Nonsense! I enjoy it.”

Gaara muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like and “if you say so.” Temari couldn’t help the small starburst of pride in her chest that her baby sibling was picking up on their genetic back-talking ability.

It was a quiet few minutes of sorting through boxes and scrolls and crates, passing items to each other when one found something that would be more suitable in a different spot or surveyed by different hands. Nearly half an hour had passed before Gaara spoke again, sitting upright achingly slowly.

In his palm was a small wooden box, with intricate scrollwork along the joined edges and a delicate inlay in the lid. It had once been glossy, as evidenced by the shine that was revealed from under the thick layer of cloudy dust as Gaara wiped a streak through it with his tunic sleeve. But time and disregard had left it somewhat dingy, tarnished around the edges and metal starting to patina. Gaara scooted closer to his sister, offering the box slowly, like one would food to a feral animal. His eyes were large and a little panicked, a little sad.

“I believe this to be mother’s jewelry box.” he said, quiet voice but little more than a rasp. The silence around them suddenly felt thick, reverently so. Temari could feel the joints in her fingers creak like one of Kankuro’s puppets as she reached out to take the little box, barely bigger than her two fists pressed together.

She felt more than heard Kankuro move from his space across the floor and sit on her left side, Gaara at her right. Temari swiped the rest of the dust off the lid with her fingers.

The box felt familiar, in that waterlogged, wobbly-edged way memories of her mother were, from her soft smile and the little crinkle at the corners of her eyes to the lullabies she sang in some Sunan language far, far older than the two of them, rocking Temari to sleep against her breast.

The little golden-plated latch caught once, twice, before Temari was able to lever it open. As the lid lifted so did the upper shelf of the box, springs creaking as the inside of the box revealed the two levels within. On the upper half sat a few velvet-lined rows of earrings, still glittering and whole despite the time they had spent abandoned, ignored, in the depths of the sandstone tunnels. On the lower, a few necklaces, a pair of bracelets, a set of rings, organized in small square compartments lined with the same velvet.

“I remember her wearing these,” Kankuro muttered, pointing to a pair of rectangular earrings, glittering reds and browns and the barest hint of sandy cream all edged in a golden border. They were polished sandstone, the precious kind, not the kind that their buildings were made of, not the kind that they were surrounded by on all sides at this very moment.

“I do too.” Temari whispered. A fuzzy, watercolor memory spun on reel at the front of her mind like it was being projected onto the inside of her skull, like if one took a knife to her forehead they could crack it open and watch the memory play out for themself. Temari, something of two years old, sitting on her mother’s knee at a work table, an infant Kankuro swaddled in cloth and slumbering against Karura’s chest.

Gaara shifted, bringing his knees up to his chest and hugging them, tucked up underneath his sharp chin. Temari felt a pant of regret, suddenly, at the fact that her youngest sibling wouldn’t hold any memories of their mother, even as faint as her own were. She was awash in a wave of grief and anger (so much anger, at Rasa and at the world and at herself despite the fact that she, too, had been a child) for the fact that Gaara’s childhood was stolen away from him so.

Gaara gently bonked his temple against Temari’s own, as if sensing her thoughts. Temari surfaced from the wave of anger she simmered in and reached up to hold his head in place against her own even as he went to pull away, moving with affection towards Gaara in an unthinking way she wouldn’t have dared but a few years ago. Gaara flinched at the contact and for a moment Temari felt an ages-old long buried pang of regret and fear, until Gaara relaxed minutely into the touch and a breath shuddered through him. Temari made as though to lift her hand, but Gaara pressed his temple harder against her own. Gaara had always had a much easier time speaking with actions than words.

“Here, look, I think he got these for her from Wave, when they were still courting.” Kankuro spoke again, pointing out a pair of earrings made of clusters of pearls that would never be naturally found in the desert. They were held in place by thin rivulets of silver curled like the shapes of waves, fine veins of silver tracing up to cling against the wearer’s earlobe and hook in place. Temari sniffed, breaking from her embrace with Gaara to fix her other sibling with a look.

“How do you know that?”

“The craftsmanship is very indicative of wave--” piped up Gaara’s dry humor. Temari rolled her eyes.

“I know that, there aren’t any pearls in the desert. But he could’ve gotten them from anywhere that touches water. Why Wave? And during their courtship?” Temari pressed. Kankuro shrugged, attempting to pull off vague nonchalance even as clear as it was that the questioning pressed into uncomfortable territory for him.

“He left journals down here, and in his office. I read them.” Kankuro shifted his gaze away from the both of them. Shijima held up both her hands in a gesture of surrender, making it clear she wasn’t going to save Kankuro from this either.

“When he was alive?” Temari felt her voice raise against her own will.

“No!” Kankuro crossed his arms over his chest (when had he gotten so broad?) “Not until after he kicked the bucket. Even I’m not stupid enough to snoop on the old man.”

Temari wilted. She loved both her siblings dearly, but as the middle child, Kankuro was often forgotten, despite the fact that he was just as technically skilled as either her or Gaara (even if his personable skills lacked greatly in some respects.) It made sense that a younger Kankuro would’ve unearthed their fathers journals and papers, squirreled away in the files he kept in the underground of the basement, far away from prying eyes and curious children with wandering hands.

(Kankuro was an awfully good pickpocket, though.)

Temari ached for both her siblings then, the fact that they should have been closer as children, more like a family instead of a collection of strangers play-acting at one, and the childhood that had been stolen from the three of them as a whole. Her children would never want for love, for they would already be drowning in it from the moment of their birth.

“Here, Temari. I like these.” Gaara spoke up from her right, breaking Temari out of the mire of her thoughts as to whether or not attempting to embrace Kankuro as she had Gaara moments ago would make him run screaming out of the manor entirely or not. Gaara’s spindly finger pointed to a pair of blue gemstone earrings with speckles of forest green, like looking at the ocean from far, far above and seeing it speckled with islands. “Azurite. And these little green segments are malachite.”

Temari hummed. “How do you know? Have you taken up studying precious minerals when we aren’t looking?”

Shijima coughed so as to cover up a laugh. Gaara’s cheeks reddened but he continued on, gaze averted, delicately tracing the razor-thin edge of the jagged crescent moon shaped azurite earrings. A barely noticeable vein of sand from his armor trailed behind his fingertip, as if the sand were attempting to caress the stone in its own right. “It’s copper ore. I can sense the minerals within it…. And I have taken up a bit of study of precious gemstones in my spare time.”

“I think he’s researching the perfect gemstone to present Rock Lee-san with.” Shijima muttered from across the way. Gaara’s ears turned bright pink underneath his Sand Armor. Kankuro barked a laugh, and Temari suppressed a giggle into her fist, which only made her sneeze because of the dust that had gathered on her hands and the edges of her sleeves.

“It brings forth wisdom, truth, and dignity.” Gaara finished. Kankuro hummed, reaching to pluck the earrings from the velvet lining of the jewelry box. All of the siblings had had their ears pierced at some point; Kankuro wore his stretched, and Gaara had three holes in each lobe with which he decorated with small earrings of precious metals, but Temari hardly ever decorated her own piercings with anything beyond a pair of silver studs to keep the piercing holes from closing.

“I think that fits her perfectly-- don’t you, Gaara?” Kankuro asked, gently replacing the metal stud in her ear with one of the azurite earrings. There was a quiet rustle of sand and Gaara was gently positioning the remaining earring in her other ear. His sand caressed the shell of her ear, and if Temari listened close enough she swore she could’ve heard those old, gentle lullabies in that ancient language.

“I agree. She is exemplary.” Gaara added. Temari felt her eyes well with tears and she wrapped an arm around the neck of a sibling on either side, drawing them close so she could tuck her head on top of theirs.

(“Hey, don’t go cryin’ on us!”

“I’m not! There’s just dust in my eyes!”)

**Author's Note:**

> shadchan: a jewish professional matchmaker or marriage decider.  
> shidduch: a jewish arranged marriage.   
> shidduchim: the process of a shidduch  
> mohar: the marriage payment made by a bridegroom either to his bride or to the bride's father.  
> "yedid": beloved   
> "bat-zug": husband   
> "shvester": sister  
> \-----------------------  
> thank you so much for reading! jewish sand siblings are incredibly close to my heart and so is shikatema, and i've had this idea percolating in my head for quite some tine. i'm incredibly excited to post it! i hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it, and as always, comments, concrit, and questions are always welcome. i hope you're all staying safe! <3


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